What is Cosplay Flashback? Cosplay Flashback is a blog series where I’ll revisit my older costumes and discuss how I made them and how I would make them differently if I was making them today. I’ve been cosplaying over 10 years and I’ve learned a lot in that time. It’s fun to go back and revisit older costumes with new knowledge. I hope you enjoy!
Stats
Character: Ryuuzuki Umi
Series: Magic Knights Rayearth
Version: Artbook
Debut: Anime Matsuri 2009
Awards: Best Walk On Anime Matsuri 2009
Construction
All the armor pieces are either XPVC, or found objects altered (hello giant christmas ornament breast cup). We helped each other pattern out the armor with poster board before cutting the XPVC. Once our patterns were made was cut all the armor pieces out of XPVC and the heated them and shaped them. Some pieces were shaped free hand, others were shaped over body doubles we made with masking tape. Once all pieces were shaped we patterned out the gold trim. The trim was made using craft foam with styrene. The armor pieces were painted separately and then glued together with contact cement.
The skirt is custom dyed with the ombre method (gradient) and the edges were tattered using a utility knife. The white top was patterned on a dress form. Under the loose portion of the garment is a more fitted piece to offer a little more support.
This costume also involved my first time resin casting, and it was absolutely terrible.
But Why?
Look at how pretty it is! I convinced two of my friends to join me in building MKR costumes as “practice” for a much more ambitious armor build we wanted to do. We had never made armor so I thought this was a good introduction. SPOILER ALERT: this costume KILLED our sanity and we never made those other costumes. NEVER.
What I Would Do Now?
WHERE DO I EVEN START? This costume is where 90% of my material for my “Cosplay Horror Stories” panel comes from. This costume is the only costume I’ve ever pulled an all nighter for. I blocked parts of the build out from my memory. At 2am the day we were driving to the event my sword’s hilt mold hadn’t cured yet and I handed it to my cosplay cohorts and told them to figure it out because I was just incapable of dealing with it. (They dug it out of the polyurethane mold material, cleaned it off and just poured resin all over it…which ended up working I guess?) This is the costume that 7 years later I am STILL MAD about. I hate this costume.
So truly what would I have done differently? The first thing I would have done would have been to quit. No lie, I regret that at that 2am melt down I didn’t just say deuces and go to bed. I spent the rest of the convention in a hotel room madly trying to finish this costume. I was physically exhausted and I had the most sleep of anyone in the group. I didn’t quit because I didn’t want to let my group down, but if there is one positive thing to take from this build it is that my sanity and my health are worth more than a costume and my friends will understand that.
The second thing I would have done differently would have been to plan for the learning curve. This was the first time any of us had ever made armor and we should have given ourselves more time. We didn’t plan out how to attach the armor to our bodies. We didn’t plan out how to attach the armor pieces to each other. Some of our methods ended up failing because we didn’t have time to test them before we wore the costumes. Perhaps someone ended up hot glueing a gauntlet to their arm in a state of delirium (they did FYI). Maybe if we had given ourselves an extra week, or month, or two months it would have been a different experience.
Aside from all of that, the world of thermoplastics in cosplay has changed a lot in 7 years. I think I would still have used XPVC for a lot of this build if I started today, but maybe for the odd shapes or complex curves I would have explored worbla or thibra. I also know now that if you need a massive clamp sized clear gem you can make a mold out of silicone and you do not need to cast into a glass candy dish lid and then try to pry the thing out without breaking it…god I hated this costume so much.